Rodar's Scepter
Skills ;Aura of Authority ;The might of the scepter is focused on your dragon's breath ability, enhancing its effect. ;Cloak of Dominion ;The power of the scepter is focused on your dragon's secondary ability, enhancing its effect. Lore The tribes of Rodar, the beastmen, have lived on those blasted and corrupted plains for centuries. They are led by a single man, the Inveterate Khan: Rodar the liche. At the dawn of the Pact, when the world was ignorant of its role in the games of the gods and the battles between Hyperion and Astaroth, Rodar was the First Sage of Auris, the glorious kingdom ascendant, home to the apostles of Hyperion. In this kingdom, and this kingdom alone, Hyperion had entrusted the truth of the century to come and the battle that would be fought at its end. Auris was a city of wisdom, its plains not the blasted ruins of Rodar that we see now, but instead verdant seas of swaying wheat and rye, dotted with groves of fig and apple, dominated its territory. It was an idyllic place, where the wise had the peace needed to consider the future and to learn the mysteries of the great magics years earlier than most cultures even became aware of the arcane. To their primitive neighbors, those of Auris were not unlike gods themselves and they were often treated as such when they walked among the tribals. Perhaps this is what angered Astaroth, or perhaps he simply sought to rob Hyperion of a piece on the board. Whatever, the reason, it was Astaroth that engineered the fall of Auris. As First Sage, Rodar was chief advisor to the king and the spiritual well-being of the kingdom was his responsibility. Rodar was also the seer of Auris; his eyes interpreted the auguries of the stars and thus it was his warnings that steered the kingdom away from doom, time and time again. He seemed infallible; his visions were always accurate and his interpretations of their meanings always seemed to fit. Rodar gained much respect guiding the king and the people of Auris, then the black dreams came. In the dreams, Rodar stood on the edge of the river that ran the fringe of the spine of the world to the west of Auris. Its great waters coursed by sedately, but then the ground rumbled and the river turned, surrounding Rodar on all sides. A deafening roar filled the air and always, without looking, Rodar knew a dragon was upon him. As the roar grew louder, he could not stop himself from looking to see the great beast that would spell his end, but every time there was nothing but the void - blackness, with no stars or skies. Night after night, Rodar would awaken screaming from the dream. He devoted months to analyzing the portents such a dream must contain, but always he found no connection to events in the kingdom. He could not interpret the vision that plagued him. He grew irritable as the dreams robbed every night of rest and soon the servants in the palace of Auris avoided him. Finally, when he could take no more he decided to leave the palace and the side of the king, to travel to the river himself and see what connection the dream had to that place. He set up camp when he found the place and he waited. Night after night the dream still haunted him and still he was no closer to learning its meaning. But finally, after three months of sleeping on the hard ground by the river, the dream changed. It began the same way, but when Rodar searched the darkness for the dragon this time, he saw a light in the east - the palace. Through the twisting geography of dreams, Rodar could see its spires burning, its great magic turned aside and brought down not by a dragon, but by simple, savage men. There at their head stood a terrible figure, a warlord dressed in armor of dragon scale and bone, his face obscured by a helmet of blackened metal hammered roughly into the shape of the face of Astaroth, the lord of Darkness. The warlord held in his hand a stave, a scepter of twisted black metal adorned at the top with the skull of a dragon. The skull was like nothing he had seen. Horns swept back in triplets, the lowest on each side curving back on itself to face forward and frame the beast's horrifying visage. Its terrible jaws were open wide as spectral fire crawled in its empty eye sockets. The same spectral fire crawled across the warlord and he seemed to grow visibly larger and more powerful. With a casual gesture of dismissal, he waved his free hand and the last of the great spires of Auris toppled as if struck. The roar of a dragon rang through air once again and Rodar, the real Rodar, awoke to the sight of a massive dragon towering over him. It stared down at Rodar with flaming eyes. Even beneath its pallid blue-white skin, Rodar could see it was the dragon from his dream. Trembling, Rodar struggled to rise, the monster still staring, its forked tongue lolling from its slavering maw, where a bank of sharp knife-edged teeth awaited. It was toying with Rodar, he could feel it in the beast's fiery stare. Images assaulted Rodar' mind as the dragon lifted its head and roared once more. They were images of the world, but not as it was now, how it was before the pact; before time. Rodar knew they came from the monster and he knew then that the thing was old, impossibly old. Again the creature roared and again images sliced through Rodar' thoughts. This time he saw the massive dragon in battle after battle, destroying its foes, growing stronger as they died. It fed of each battle, eventually defeating time itself to stand before Rodar. It is powerful, Sage. The voice that filled his mind was not the monster's, he knew that creature had no identity in that sense. It was too old, far too primal for words. This intrusion was like a half forgotten whisper, suddenly remembered. But it is old; tired. Its power is wasted. But you? The monster turned to look at Rodar once more and he could see that the voice was right. The beast was old. And slow. It was tired. It was dying. It was not the threat of his dream, but with its magic he could prevent such a power from ever rising! Grimly, the First Sage of Auris stepped back, over his bedroll, amazed the old dragon had not yet made its move. A smile, wicked and cruel, spread across his face. He spoke a single word, in the language taught to Rodar by Hyperion himself and a summoned forth a sprite, a ball of brilliant blue lighting. The crackle of thunder heralded every strike of the spell as bolt after bolt flew at the dragon, bathing it in blue light. The stench of burnt leather filled the air as the old beast cried out, too old and weary to use its collected power. Rodar laughed as it died, amazed at his luck, suddenly glad of the terrifying dreams that had brought him here, to the end of such a powerful creature. As the beast collapsed and the waters of the river rushed over the fallen corpse, Rodar once again saw images in his mind. But where the dragon had filled his mind with the past, what Rodar saw now was the future. There would come a time when Hyperion would lose his reign over the Lands Below. When dark Astaroth would hold power and Auris would stand alone, unprotected. The current kingdom was too weak, he saw that now. Only something as powerful as the dark lord could stand against him. Rodar would have to mold the kingdom into that power, or it would fall at Astaroth's dark hand. But, to do that, Rodar would need power of his own. His visions showed him the way of it. The ritual necessary to draw the power from the beast was not as difficult as separating its skull from its body, but when it was done, Rodar had his power. It was a scepter, nearly as tall as a man, topped with a dragon's skull. As he gripped the scepter in his hand, he could feel its magic at work, enhancing his abilities with the accumulated power of eons of dragon-life. He stood and began the march to the palace. With each step his determination, and his power, grew. His people were weak. He would shape them, literally if he had to, into the beings strong enough to survive, when the darkness came. There would always be a Rodar and he would protect this land, no matter what it - or he - had to become in the process. Rodar never looked back, and so he never saw the corpse of the great dragon boil away into sickly black smoke, shifting in the wind to take the form of a winged thing, bat-like and horned. He never heard the laugh of Lord Astaroth, echoing from the shadows to congratulate his minion. Having set his path, Rodar took his place as the power of Rodar, never aware that he was simply the latest piece to shift the board, in the game between Titans. Category:Weapons